The long-list for The UK Blog Sound of 2014 has been announced and below you can listen to track from each of the sixteen listed artists. This post is a summary of the long-list and my own particular views will follow in the next post.

The Blog Sound Poll was first published in 2011. The concept of the poll wasn’t to criticise the established BBC Sound of list, but simply an experiment to see if UK music bloggers could come up with its own list of emerging artists that was more representative of their community and give the artists that were nominated some extra publicity. Indeed the idea was to compliment the BBC list in many ways by providing an alternative to compare and contrast.

The 2011 list contained some interesting alternatives to the BBC list including Mercury Prize winners Alt-J and Bastille who have found huge commercial success in the UK in 2013. The 2012 list was more similar to the BBC list with Haim being the runaway winners, followed closely by Chvrches.

The UK Blog Sound of 2014 poll is the biggest yet with 59 blogs each nominating their 3 favourite emerging artists. It has been retitled to give emphasis to the fact that it is a list created by UK bloggers, although the choices of music can come from around the world. This year however, 14 of the 16 most voted for artists are British.

The winning act and close runners up will be revealed on the 2nd of January in a short list of three.

This list contains a range of artists that have all received strong coverage from UK bloggers over the last year and can therefore be seen to be a good representation of what music bloggers have been enjoying listening to.

The UK Blog Sound of 2014 Long List

BANKS

Sultry electronic music with a hint of soul from Los Angeles - the only non-UK act on the list.

EMBERS

Cinematic and vast indie rock from Manchester

GEORGE EZRA

Singer songwriter with a bluesy voice

HELLA BETTER DANCER

Dark and fiery indie rock band

HOCKEYSMITH

Genre hopping sister duo from Cornwall

HONEYBLOOD

Raw d-i-y indie rock two piece from Glasgow

IYES

Edgy sweetly melodic pop duo from Brighton

KHUSHI

Endearing East London singer who sits somewhere between pop, indie and folk

LYLA FOY

Previously known as Wall, creator of delicate, brooding, intimate pop

MARIKA HACKMAN

Singer songwriter with haunting folk references

MT WOLF

Dreamy sounding band that combine electronics, acoustic music and ambient atmospherics with near operatic vocals